Eternal Sonata - Development

Development

Director Hiroya Hatsushiba stated:

People who play games and people who love classical music are not necessarily sharing same type of interests. Most people in Japan know the name of Chopin; however, most of the people who know of Chopin think he is just some kind of a great music composer without knowing any more about him. Most of them have heard Chopin's music but not a lot could put his name to it immediately. By creating a colorful fantasy world in Chopin's dream, I was hoping that people would get into this game easily and also come to know how great Chopin's music is.

For the localization, the game's text was proofread by the Frederick Chopin Society in Warsaw. The localization team wanted to be as historically accurate as possible, without losing the original message of the script.

On April 23, 2007, the ESRB posted their rating for Eternal Sonata listing the game as being intended for release on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. However, when news of this quickly spread, the ESRB removed the listing entirely. On September 11, 2007, Bandai Namco's official site listed Eternal Sonata as coming soon to PlayStation 3, yet also listed the Xbox 360 version as being "available now". Again, as news quickly spread, the information was removed. The following day, scans from Famitsu were released, confirming the game as being released for the PlayStation 3. On September 14, 2007 Bandai Namco officially announced Eternal Sonata was coming to the PlayStation 3, during Spring 2008 in Japan.

As Namco Bandai had stated, there are features exclusive for the PlayStation 3 version. This includes new playable characters, Crescendo and Serenade, who played a major role in the plot of the game, but were not playable in the Xbox 360 version. It will also include a new clothing system, in which the player can freely change a few characters' costumes, specifically those of Allegretto, Beat and Polka – the three characters that are controllable in the field at various points in the game. The other extras are the two dungeons, Lament Mirror and Church of EZI, the former of which is compulsory.

Eternal Sonata features a large soundtrack, mostly composed by Motoi Sakuraba, with seven of Chopin's compositions performed by Russian pianist Stanislav Bunin and presented in 5.1 surround sound. Featured music of Chopin's include Étude Op. 10, No. 12, Étude Op. 10, No. 3 and Polonaise Op. 53. A Japanese aria composed by Sakuraba titled "Heaven's Mirror" (鏡天花, Kyōtenka?) is also performed by Akiko Shinada for the soundtrack. The game's background music was released in Japan as the four-disc album Trusty Bell: Chopin's Dream Original Score (トラスティベル 〜ショパンの夢〜 オリジナルスコア, Torasuti Beru ~Shopan no Yume~ Orijinaru Sukoa?) on July 25, 2007 under the King Records label.